Mogu'shan Vaults Raid Preview
Tonight we have a preview of the Mogu'shan Vaults raid! If you don't remember what the raid zone looks like, you can take a look at our very early preview. Keep in mind that the zone was very unfinished at that time and that does not represent the final area.

Female Pandaren Customization Preview
Female Pandaren have had more hairstyles and highlights added since the last time we previewed them.

Male Pandaren Customization Preview
Male Pandaren have received some new hairstyle and facial hair options as well!

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We’ve just released not one, but two new previews for Mists of Pandaria!

The new pandaren customization page allows you to explore the vast number of unique looks for your pandaren characters. Check out all the hairstyles, fur colors, faces, beards, and earrings at your disposal either at character creation or in the barber shop to set your own character apart. Pick from any of more than 200,000* possible combinations!

We’ve also released a sneak peek at the Mogu’shan Vaults, one of the high-level raids that await you and your friends in Pandaria. Learn more about the history of this ancient site and discover the secrets that have lain hidden deep within the vaults for centuries... until now.
More Mists of Pandaria previews are coming soon -- stay tuned!

*The authors of these pages make no claim or guarantee that this number is accurate. Dammit Jim, we’re writers, not mathematicians!

New Raid DPS Test Dummies

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

As an experiment, in the next beta build, you may find some new kinds of test dummies.

In order to keep them out of way in less travelled areas, they are located in Shattrath. (The Aldor and Scyers miss you!) The dummies have 50 million health, can be killed, and respawn quickly. They are spread out so you don't accidentally cleave or interfere with someone else's test. They won't turn to face you, so you can attack them from behind, if that's how you roll. The dummies also should buff you if you get near them with a full suite of temporary raid buffs, including food and flasks, and debuff themselves. These won't stack with your group buffs or debuffs, so it doesn't matter if you buff yourselves or not. (We're only talking about main raid buffs here, like Battle Shout or Blessing of Kings. If it's an individual buff or debuff, you'll still need to apply it normally.)

We are leaving this thread open if you'd like to post your DPS or link to logs such as World of Logs. It will be very easy to sandbag or cheat in this testing, so understand that we'll have to take all such numbers with a big old grain of salt. However, in order to compare apples to apples, we suggest purchasing a full set of PvP gear, including one on use and one on proc trinket, but no enchants or gems. Reforging is fine. If you use different sets of gear, please state that in your post. Also keep in mind that target dummy DPS is not encounter DPS.

Please keep this thread clear of class feedback -- it's just for numbers.

Again, the main purpose of this experiment is to make it easier for you get consistent DPS testing. It is only for beta and may get turned off at any point if it becomes disruptive.

Warrior (Forums / Skills)Colossus Smash Feedback
So when abilities work the same in PvE and PvP that's lazy design, and when abilities work differently in PvE and PvP that's lazy design? Got it.

I think GC's point is that the accusation of "lazy game design" is often just a hoity-toity way of saying "you're not doing something I want." I mean, the point might be valid, I don't know anything about PVP and less about warriors, but the rhetorical jab of "lazy game design" is the new "slap in the face."

Yeah, this was really my point. I legitimately wasn't trying to troll anyone. As any long time readers know, I have a very sarcastic sense of humor, but it's not intended to convey disrespect for any of our players. At the same time, I'd recommend a pretty thick skin from anyone attempting to wade into our forums.

We get requests literally every day to have different sets of numbers in PvP and PvE so I found it slightly amusing that the argument here was that it was bad design to do so (which ironically is often an argument I use for why we don't do it more often).

I suspect the OP and other early posters really wanted to say "I want warriors to be more of a force in PvP and having a brutally hard-hitting Colossus Smash is one way to do that." I would have found that a much more solid argument than trying to argue that we had no choice but to buff Colossus Smash because it was somehow aesthetically offensive to have it work differently in PvP. Now, I still would have disagreed with that argument because higher burst damage is almost never a good way to make a spec desirable in PvP. It's usually just less fun for everyone.

Interesting thought experiment, if you're so inclined: compare the armor of a boss to the armor of a player.

You, of all people, should know that each player represents their own opinions, regardless of what other players have said.
I do appreciate that of course, but it's helpful when players recognize that too.

Ninety-nine percent of the time you post something on our forums, you're going to be engaging with other players, not us. We read everything of course, but we can't directly respond to it all. If I were a player, one of the first questions I would ask myself before posting is "How will other players respond to my post?" If you think other players will disagree with you or if you think your point will be controversial, then it's probably worth shoring it up even more carefully. That is often the distinction between a well-crafted argument and something that comes across as just venting. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Beta Class Balance AnalysisFor example, according to my sims using pre-raid gear, if I want to increase my dps by 3-5% (depending on the spec) I can simply race change to Orc
The racial discussion is a huge morass, by which I mean that if I wade into it, it's going to dominate all of the discussion in this thread. Suffice to say in this case that we think the world has changed enough that 5% pet damage went from kinda of a big deal to a really big deal, so we reduced it to 2% pet damage. We want Forsaken warlocks to exist.

Let's please try and keep this thread on classes though and not debate EMFH etc.

Warrior (Forums / Skills)Is Sudden Death from the arms warrior talent tree working as intended?I did about 5 min worth of attacking on a target dummy and i was literally getting proc after proc after proc with maybe 2 or 3 seconds in between on attacking? not saying it needs a nerf but maybe the % proc chance is wrong atm?
As I suggested in a recent thread, we are going to try the implementation of Sudden Death as 20% on white attacks instead of 6% on white and yellow attacks.

Won't this end up dramatically reducing the vengeance gain from magic damage? In general it's probably not a big deal, except in the case of certain mobs (e.g. Gandling and Lei Shi) who do magic damage exclusively.
We're actually giving 5% of damage that isn't mitigated by armor (i.e. bleeds and magic damage) to solve this problem. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

LFR FeedbackIt would not be a problem if it rewarded 378 gear and doesnt include any set bonuses.
Even if it does have upgrades for you, realistically, how long will you run it (assuming your guild does normal and heroic as well) before an upgrade for a particular slot drops? I mean, I'm sure there're unlucky examples, but in my case, for instance, I was done with it in 3 weeks (for my primary spec), to fill some voids on my gear. After that, I kept visiting it with my off-spec to gear that one up.

Also, keep in mind that LFR in Mists of Pandaria is going to work differently: personal loot, 1 week delay in relation to the release of the normal version of the raid (at which time, if your guild is sufficiently skilled, they'll be jumping into Heroics)... It'll be a completely different situation, not just because of the timing on its release, but also because there'll be much more content available than LFR and raids, which will probably help battling the "burn out" if you still want to run it over and over for that piece of gear that just refuses to drop (we've all had one of those!). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Leveling DifficultyThe whole make lvling harder I agree with but that should be on all servers.
Although it's not really related to the thread, the developers agree that the low level experience (for levels 1-20) is a bit easy at times. And that comes from the fact they don't want to scare new players off.

However, they feel there needs to be some fear of death, and they've been working to increase the presence of creatures and try to make the world feel more dangerous in several places (particularly in that level 1-20 range), as well as in the level 85-90 zones.

While the developers don't want to make it frustrating, you should notice (and if you've been in the beta you've probably experienced it already) that the 85-90 zones require much more attention regarding where your character is, what's surrounding you and how many mobs you can take at the same time. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Reasoning for Separate PvP and PvE GearThe reason is to give people something to grind until their eyes start bleeding...I have to agree, because I cant see any other real argument - now you have to spend double time to get both gears. It pushes players away from PvP, so PvP is deserted in all aspects.
How about some of the other arguments you've seen in this thread, such as the fact that PvPers were miffed about raiders stepping into a battleground in their top tier PvE gear and flattening their opposition? If I remember correctly, PvPers didn't want to have to raid to get the best gear for PvP. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Bring Back Skirmishes in MoP
We are well aware that there are some players out there who would love to see Skirmishes brought back into the game, the key word in that sentence being "some". When Skirmishes were in the game, they were used by an incredibly small percentage of the playerbase. So if you consider that the development and design support that is required for this system is in no way trivial, it’s very unlikely that Skirmishes will ever be brought back. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Nostalgia for Classic WoWI like the memories which those days gave me. Signing on to my first big guild. Spending a whole night gathering the mats for my first head enchant. Being taught the Grim Guzzler stealth run. Looking for hours for a group to Strath/Scholo.

However, I am not sure I'd enjoy it as much now - having seen how the game (and others) have developed, and how they offer a much wider range of game elements now.
I started in April '05 and have plenty of memories from those days. My first dungeon run (Deadmines), those long evenings on BRD, UBRS, Baron runs, MC... And as fun as they were, and as much as I enjoy remembering that experience, I agree with that sentiment. It's been 7 years, we've moved on, and I'd rather look to what the future holds. What was right back in 2005 just wouldn't work today (much like what was right in 1998 wouldn't have worked in 2005).

I still remember the reaction when we (the players) were told that 40 man raiding was being downsized to 25 man raids. Some people complained because they felt that 40-man raids were barely epic (in their opinion) already, as considered that the truly epic were 72-man raids that other games had. However, these days everyone is defending that 25-man raiding is more epic than 10-man and arguing that 40-man was just too big...

I'd even dare to say that what makes those memories so great is the simple fact that you can't relive them easily. Sure, I can pick up my copy of X classic game from the 90's, plug it in and replay the game. But that sense of mistery and going blindly into something that is entirely new is just not going to come back on that particular case.

That's one of the reasons why I'm so looking forward to Mists of Pandaria and all the new features that will come along. Pandaria (the continent) itself is just gorgeous and there's plenty of content to explore and discover.

And since all the way to level 90 we'll have to use ground mounts, it will be even easier to notice those small details that add to the gameplay experience to make it even better. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battle.net World Championship Series Tickets Coming Soon

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The Battle.net World Championship event -- the culmination of the over 30 StarCraft II World Championship Series (WCS) tournaments, and home to the upcoming World of Warcraft Arena global finals -- will take place November 17 and 18 in Shanghai, China. With so many talented players competing to be crowned 2012’s world champion, we want to see faces from all over the world live, in the crowd, and cheering on their hometown heroes.

In the near future we’ll open up tickets sales for the event. Keep in mind, however, since we will be offering tickets through our Chinese website, some western payments may not be supported. If you’re determined to make the trip to Shanghai for the ultimate StarCraft II event, though, we want to help you out. We’ve given several of our eSports partners, as well as StarCraft II and World of Warcraft fansites a collection of tickets.

In the coming days you’ll find information on the following websites about how to claim tickets of your own. We’ll be sure to update this post as well when individual website ticket promotions are live.

We hope to see you in China!

As we get closer to the Battle.net World Championship event we’ll have more details on what events and activities will be featured, where and when streams will be available, player and shoutcaster lineups, and more!

Pre-emptive post before the usual tsunami of Pandaren Female customisation complaints. The new raid test dummies sound great (although I could have sworn they already existed; I remember distinctly in either TBC or WOTLK getting the boss-level target dummy in Ironforge down to 1 health or dead), and it's interesting to see them asking "Onyxia or more Trolls?"; I doubt there's even anything left of Onyxia now after the past 3 times she was brought back such as in BWD.

Very nice, now can we PLEASE add more hair choices for other races please? Orcs need more long tails and dreadlocks and such and dwarves also need more long hair and locks options. Hell all races need TONS of new options.

Only thing I still find odd is how the pandaren faces are all the same shape. You think there will be any more customization - like different eyes, mouth shape or whatsoever - available at launch?

It's been an ongoing protest on the beta forums, I think we're up to 7 topics over the course of a few months asking for more faces and fewer recolors. The general consensus is that they've written off pandaren models as complete, since all we've gotten in this time is some hair and earrings. It's nearly Worgen faces all over again.

Very nice, now can we PLEASE add more hair choices for other races please? Orcs need more long tails and dreadlocks and such and dwarves also need more long hair and locks options. Hell all races need TONS of new options.